MyWebCareer Blog

With MyWebCareer, you’ve been able to get your Career Score and evaluate your online presence. And, you’ve been able to tweet your score and show others what a strong online presence you have.

Well, now you can tweet your way to a great prize. Who doesn’t like prizes?!

What Is It?

Tuesday, February 22 through Monday, February 28, MyWebCareer will be choosing one lucky winner at random each weekday.

What Do I Have to Do?

It’s really easy! All you have to do is (1) make your profile public and (2) share your Score on Twitter. Piece of cake!

By making your profile public, you can see other members’ Scores and compare your Score to theirs. You also get to see where they are, what industry they work in, and even connect with them on LinkedIn.

What Do I Get?

Each randomly chosen winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card. Winners will receive their gift card electronically, so it’s there for instant enjoyment.

Are There Any Restrictions?

Nope. We know we have users around the world, so we want everyone to have a chance to win! As long as you have an account on MyWebCareer, you can tweet your Career Score and be eligible to win. No purchase necessary.

So, now that you know the rules, go out there and tweet your Career Score! Don’t fall behind. Compare and connect with other members. Make your profile public and show off your Score to others!

Good luck!

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No doubt about it, Gen Y is changing the workforce and how work is getting done. Gen Y wants something beyond an all-consuming career. They want true work-life balance and fulfillment. Some call it being lazy; others call it working smart. They believe they can raise their children; spend time with family, friends, and social networks; and still meet challenges and achieve goals at both home and at work. If work can be done at home, or a conference call can be had while at a soccer game, they’ll gladly do it.

Being the smart bunch they are, Gen Y is already doing a great job of marketing themselves. This is the time of technology and instant communication — employers and older generations are realizing this and taking strides to incorporate them and make them part of their work culture.

Building Through Social Media

Gen Y’ers are the masters of social media, which means they understand that marketing exists through other people. They use social media to connect them with other people who may be able to help them. They’re smart, but don’t think they’re freeloaders. They’re helpful and gladly return favors. Gen Y can position themselves in their company as the go-to-person for all technology needs, making them an invaluable asset to their work group and the organization as a whole. They’re well connected and work well online.

Marketing Intuitively

We’re all marketing ourselves without thinking much of it, but Gen Y is doing it on steroids. Gen Y is hyper-connected with mass media, including the fact that their phones are an extension of their hands and that they go online more than any other generation. Every time they send out a text message to fifty of their friends or update their status on Facebook to a few thousand friends, they’re marketing themselves to the world. Then their network spreads their messages to an even greater audience in just minutes. It’s a domino effect.

Use the Endless Tools Provided

The Internet is at your disposal. There are tons of free tools and resources. Every communication channel is a marketing tool, and since Gen Y is the most plugged in generation, there isn’t a tool they don’t touch. Aside from the phone and in-person meetings, Gen Y has instant messaging, Skype, social networks, blogging, podcast and more. By using these tools, Gen Y delivers messages faster and in different forms, so they can build their personal brand in a shorter period of time. Members of Gen Y are very proficient using these tools because they grew up with technology and can easily adapt to the changing technological landscape — they love to communicate and share ideas.

What other ways does Generation Y appeal to potential employers?

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In the interview process, people usually tell you what you want to hear. But on social networks, you get a true picture of what people are really like. With employers and recruiters using the Internet to research their potential candidates, you have to wonder, what is it that they’re looking for?

Employers check these sites to not only see the type of person you are, but also how you would represent them. Once you’re hired–wherever it may be–you are a part of that brand/company. You are their face. Employers want to see how you represent yourself, which in turn shows how you’d represent them.

The first thing employers are going to look for when they’re looking at your information online is more than likely going to be your LinkedIn profile. It’s the best starting point because it has everything you need to get “to the next level,” so to speak. Even if you’ve been on an interview, there’s a lot of pertinent information there. If your profile is filled out completely, employers will have your skills and qualifications in one handy place, along with recommendations and what kind of groups you’re in–a good way to see your professional interests.

Once an employer looks at relevant information, they’ll have a good idea if your skills and qualifications make the cut. Now they’ll want to know more about you; the things you’re not necessarily hiding, but things about you and your everyday life.

The second place employers look at is Facebook, Twitter, or any other kind of social networking site. Why? Because these are where you spend the most time and communicate the most. Employers can take away a lot from these networks. They can easily asses how you interact with people, who your friends are, and even your interests. Are you hostile? Are you a complainer? Are you a team player? It’s all relevant.

Are you in a group or organization? Employers look at that, too. Most organizations have websites with member information, like a bios or pictures. If an employer Googles your name, which they will, your name may pop up for the organization.

These are all important facts to know when employers are hiring. Do employers base their decision solely on what they find online? No. At least they shouldn’t. But keep in mind: Information found online is important and can reflect your true personality.

What other information do you think employers look for?

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LinkedIn has grown to be one of the most popular and successful networking platforms. Networking and building relationships are some of the best ways to market yourself, and LinkedIn has many tools to help you with the process.

I don’t know if many people truly understand the power of LinkedIn. It’s one of those platforms that, if used appropriately, works for you. A place to showcase your experience and skills? Sure. Somewhere to connect with old employers and colleagues? Absolutely.

But LinkedIn does so much more. It can be an excellent way to connect with people in your industry, build relationships, and launch your career.

Don’t Write to Write

When compiling information and creating your profile, make it a little punchy. Remember who is reading it. Writing a summary is key to your profile. It’s your elevator pitch, so try not to use a lot of huge, jargon-filled statements. We know you’re smart — no need to get SAT-level words involved. Keep it simple. Write who you are, what you do, how you’re good at it, and what you hope to be doing.

Include Your Skills

Everything you do no matter how big or small is still experience and can transfer into many skills. Don’t underestimate volunteer work or that summer job you took waiting tables. There is a lot to be learned and a lot you took away from those jobs. Now make them work for you. Waiting tables can translate into customer service skills and working under stress or pressure — all handy skills in any type of work. LinkedIn recently added a new ‘Skills’ feature, providing yet another way for you to differentiate yourself from the competition. Go to your LinkedIn Profile, click on ‘Add Sections’ and choose ‘Skills’.

Play With All Their Toys

LinkedIn offers a multitude of incredible tools to make your profile stand out, and I highly recommend you use them. Do you have a blog? If so, the WordPress or blog app allows you to showcase your most recent post on your profile to help you drive traffic back to your site. There are other applications to help you showcase your creative work, your slide show presentations, white papers, tweets — and you can even have a video of yourself auto play when someone lands on your profile using the SlideShare or Google document application.

How do you make LinkedIn more marketable for you?

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Managing your professional online presence isn’t all about avoidance and prevention. Yes, you should always keep a close eye on it, but you should also think of your presence as a product that constantly needs to be marketed in the right way.

Maintaining and improving your career brand and online presence can be very easy. It can take just a few minutes a day. It’s like caring for anything else, really. You go online everyday, so do little things while you’re there to keep yourself in the positive.

Daily Goodness

You know how your mother used to say, “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all”? Make sure you remember this advice when you do your daily status update or blog post. Go ahead and update everyday, but think about what you’re posting first. Everyday, make it a point to say something positive. If you keep being negative or post negative sentiments, they will be noticed — and not in good way. Sometimes it can even make you lose followers, connections, or friends.

Comment on Blog Posts

Make an effort everyday to find a blog or Tumblr or even fan page on Facebook to comment on. Is there a company you admire or would like to work for one day? Is there a blog you read everyday that makes you laugh or is informative? Let the author know. Strike up a conversation. With so many companies and public figures now having fan pages, it’s so easy to interact. Try a different person everyday; you’ll start building relationships in no time.

Find a New Link on LinkedIn

One of my favorite things about LinkedIn is that you can “follow” companies and see their employees who are also on LinkedIn. If you’re interested in a specific company, this is the best way to learn more about them and the people who work there. Take a close look at those people — maybe there’s someone who has the position (or one similar) you’d like to have one day. Some may even know your connections.

Connect with them; send them an e-mail or add them to your network (be sure to always personalize those invites). Let them know you’re interested in their company and what they do. Maybe they can offer you some advice. It never hurts to ask, and it shows incredible initiative.

Recruiting has never been an easy job. There are limited positions to fill and tons of people who want to fill them. That’s why employers are using social media platforms for research and insight — and even creating new mediums for companies to find information in one place and to make the process fast and easy.

According to a survey by Jobvite, social network recruiting continues to gain momentum while companies decrease spending on more expensive recruiting channels, like job boards:

46% of respondents plan to spend more on social recruiting

36% will spend less on job boards

Recruiters have long used online tools like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn–you name it. It’s where they go to get real-time information straight from the source. Again, be careful with those settings. Employers can still see information you may not want them to see from tags and mentions your friends might make.

But in-house recruiters aren’t the only ones using social media; recruiting firms are also adopting these tools into their recruiting culture and they’re taking off. Pinstripe, Inc., a leading human resources and recruitment process outsourcing specialist firm, leverages social media to help clients find top talent. Others like AIRS, Gist, and Ziggs are also streamlining the recruiting process for HR managers.

Other times, employers court potential employees by researching similar companies on LinkedIn, looking at their employees–especially if they’re creating results–and going directly to them. They either ask the employee if they’d like to join them or request a referral.

There is a wealth of information about out there, and employers are finding it. But they don’t limit themselves. They use different platforms to find the right fit. And that fit may be you.

Have you been ever been contacted by a company or recruiter? How did they find you?

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A negative online presence is bad news. The wrong person can see one inappropriate picture or post in the wrong place and at the wrong time. It’s not the end of world, but it can definitely create a bad impression on whoever is searching for you.

Unfortunately, sometimes even after you’ve deleted something negative, it doesn’t mean that it’s gone forever. But don’t panic. There are ways to fix your online no-nos and prevent them from happening again.

Check Your Name

First thing is first: See what’s being said about you. To see what’s written about you online, do a simple Google search. Type in your full name and see what comes up. There are so many people out there with the same name. You need to differentiate yourself.. Sign up to get Google Alerts on your name and use MyWebCareer to see where you’re being mentioned and what your score is saying about your presence.

Remove All Forms of Unflattery

Getting unflattering material removed is often the hardest part. Try hard to contact the individual, organization, or company that posted negative content and ask them (nicely) to remove it. If they fail to do so, or give you a hard time about it, contact the Electronic Privacy Information Center or the World Privacy Forum to assist you. These are advocacy groups aimed to assist you in removing unflattering materials off the Internet.

Sweep Your Dirt Out the Door

You need to work harder now. The key is to add positive pages that rank higher in the search results than the negatives of the past. Clean up your profiles and make sure the content is professional and reflects your personal brand. Also, be sure to go out there and spread some positive words. Contribute thoughtful comments and conversation. Google offers tools that can help you create positive content like creating aGoogle Profile, which will get your name, picture, and anything else you want to share at the bottom of the first page of results. That way you’re in control.

What have you done to fix a negative online presence?

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It may be a new notion, but professional Facebook profiles are popping up like crazy. Having a public profile with just the right information and pictures can make a huge impact on your job search.

With more and more young professionals and job seekers out there integrating Facebook with career-orientated information, more and more networking opportunities and job offers (or at least referrals) arise. Take a look at some different tips to make your profile stand out while keeping it interesting and professional.

Keep a Healthy Appearance

When someone searches for you on Facebook, the first thing they’ll see is your public profile. Appearance really is everything. Use your complete name when setting up your account and choose a professional-looking photo. You don’t have to wear a suit or anything, just keep it clean and casual. A nice headshot works nicely as well. Be sure to list your city and what it is that you do. Share photos and videos with your friends. Not necessarily photos and videos of yourself, but whatever you find interesting or relevant. This is a great example of what your profile should look like.

Use Facebook Ads

These ads are all about targeting a specific group that would care about your resume or hiring you. When you select your target audience, keep your major in mind, as well as the company and location. They work very well if you have a specific company in mind. Check out how Doug Winfield got a job through his ads.

Join the Right Networks & Groups

This isn’t just about joining groups related to your career path, but also looking for public groups that you are a part of that might turn people off. These groups can be groups that are inappropriate (Miller Lite Girls of America) or groups that align you with one side of a controversial topic (I’m thinking politics here, not “I’m with CoCo”). There are a lot of professionals out there that simply choose not to join political or religious groups on Facebook.

What do you do to keep your profile professional?

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Gen Y has taken center stage when it comes to cutting-edge trends, especially online ones. Online users age 18-26 are at the forefront in various online realms, including social computing, banking, gaming, and podcasts, according to a Forrester Research study. They are a strong, ambitious, hard-working group of people, and they want to be noticed. And everyone isnoticing–including recruiters and HR managers.

While they must be patient, Gen Y’ers can ensure success by building strong personal brands for themselves online and offline in their chosen areas of interest and expertise. They are the kings and queens of social media right now, and their curiosity has opened up communities, blogs, and an endless stream of conversations and ideas.

Gen Y’ers have been branding themselves since getting their first Hotmail e-mail address and instant messenger name in high school. They have probably migrated their brands to Gmail, Skype, and Facebook since, but the principle remains the same: Gen Y’ers are born profile builders and are extremely self-aware. This gives recent college graduates and young professionals a blazing opportunity to craft out a unique niche, build a powerful career brand behind it, and let the job offers pour in.

In this new online business world, regardless of your position, you cannot escape being branded. “It’s a new brand world…” says Tom Peters, management consultant and writer. “You’re branded, branded, branded, branded.” With a career branding plan laid out, hiring managers and the community at large will know you as an expert and thought leader. Your message will be simple and clear: you rock at something — and you deserve a job that shows it.

What are your thoughts on how Gen Y brands?

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Building a career brand is an easy way to make yourself present out there on the Web. Remember, branding is developing an image — with results to match. It’s standing out in a very large sea of fish that are looking for the same thing you are. Here are a few things to remember when developing your career brand.

Not Having a Career Presence Online

Having profiles on social media platforms is one thing—having content on them and keeping them current is a completely different thing. Actually being active online is the first step in establishing a presence for yourself. Try to make it a habit of getting online daily. Check blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn groups (those are constantly active and brimming with great conversations), etc.

Not Listing All Your Experience

It’s important to remember that, in any kind of marketing, you have to be transparent. You want to be able to showcase your skills and experience so it’s readily available for others to view. Make sure to keep it constantly updated—don’t forget to add anything new. Any new skill or experience helps, as skills can be transferable between jobs and even careers.

Not Making Yourself Visible

If you want employers to find you, then you must be able to be found. The Internet is a vast, public source of information, and it’s easy to get lost out there if you don’t make yourself visible. If you have Twitter, make it public. On Facebook, set your settings to be able to display relevant information like your major, previous employment, etc. I highly recommend starting a blog because, if you update it often, you will benefit from higher rankings in search engines.

Not Making Connections & Building Relationships

You’ve done your prep work, now it’s time to go out there and be proactive. Nothing in marketing is more powerful than word-of-mouth, which can be easily be defined as what people say about you. Yes, you want hiring mangers to come looking for you, but you also need to connect with them so they want to get to know you. And who knows, they may refer you to someone they know. It’s part of creating that presence. It’s a two-way street, and you should do as much as you can to promote yourself.

What other best practices do you suggest?

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